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"Who are you, son? You have that kind of pull?"
"I'm an officer with Southern Command. I can offer whatever I think appropriate to the locals as long as it'll be used for us and not against us. Maybe I'm overstepping what they expected, but if they're going to grant me that authority, I'll use it. We put a health center up near the Saint Francis a year or so back. Why not here? Every gun you have means one more gun Southern Command can put on another border. You feed, clothe, and arm yourselves. That's a savings in money and organization. I'll put it all on paper, assuring your independence. No ten percent tithe. You'd never have to defend anything but your own lands."
Steiner probed his teeth with his tongue and stared out the window at the wash troughs.
"Mr. Valentine, you have yourself an ally."
Lieutenant Mallow stared openmouthed as the sergeants quieted the excited comments of the men of First Platoon. Captain LeHavre shook his head, a wry smile on his face as the ferry pulled him and the weary men across.
LeHavre had sent a runner two days ago to let Valentine know the patrol was coming in, tired and hungry. The river was still deep enough to make refloating the ferry necessary. Valentine alerted his new ally at the swamp fortress to gather his militia for a meeting and review.
On one side of the landing Valentine had his platoon drawn up, at least the men who weren't working the lines and mules pulling the ferry across. On the other, Colonel Steiner stood at the head of three hundred men, women, and Grogs. Each wore a dark green bandanna tied around the neck, the only common item to the tatterdemalion Militia Steiner had christened the "Evergreen Rifles." To Valentine, the name had a certain amount of irony, as under half the group's members had firearms, mostly shotguns, and the rest carried spears, bows, pitchforks, and axes. A hundred more rifles were on their way from Southern Command, as Valentine had added several impassioned letters to the paperwork requesting heavier weapons, a health center, and a radio for the local residents. From the Wolf camp, smells of barbecue and cooking drifted out to the river. The first semiofficial gathering of the Evergreens would be celebrated with a feast.
LeHavre jumped off the ferry and splashed ashore.
"What's all this, Mr. Valentine? Grog prisoners, or a posse?"
Valentine saluted. "Welcome back, sir. Those are local Militia. Their commander and I are still going around to some other homesteads. We hope to get five hundred together before the summer is out. He's an influential man in this area."
"Leave it to you, Valentine. I leave you with a little over twenty men, and I come back to hundreds. What are you handing out, free beer?"
"Just freedom, sir."
sas, spring of the forty-second year of the Kurian Order: Valentine spent the winter months in diligent pursuit of his commission as lieutenant. While learning about interior lines and maneuver in the face of the enemy in the classroom, he became acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of oxen and pack mules in the field. He would wheedle six different calibers of ammunition out of the arsenal during the day and construe Clausewitz at night. He finished a thesis on the argument for objective reality, defending Socrates against Protagoras and Gorgias after earlier arguing about the quality of the latest barrel of flour with the demanding camp wives.
An astute observer with a detailed memory, Valentine molded his conduct after the officers he respected. He admired LeHavre's methodical planning of every company movement, each leader knowing his assignment so well the captain would often issue just two orders in a day of march: "strike the tents" at dawn and "make camp" at dusk. The company functioned as a well-tuned machine from the moment its commander hit the on switch. He appreciated Lieutenant Mallow's role as senior in amplifying and following up on his commander's orders, and copied Brostojf's devotion to his men in supplying their every want. If he also avoided Mallow's indecisiveness in the absence of clear and specific orders from the captain and Brostojf's binge drinking, it showed that he could learn how not to behave, as well. His men liked him and, what was more, respected him for the simple reason that he showed them respect.
The Guards attending the Officer's TrainingCollege chided him for his drab deerskin clothing and his shyness. He avoided the boisterous weekend outings, a fixture of college life since education began, and kept quiet in class unless called on. He remained silent about his experiences even with the other Wolves who dropped in occasionally as students and lecturers. He grew to know the scholars of Miskatonic Hall, read some of their raw files concerning the Kurians, and listened more than he talked. These traits, but especially the last, proved rare among the alternately bitching and bragging young Wolves.
Still, he felt lonely and fell into the trap of pretending to prefer being alone, thus leading to further loneliness in a vicious circle of solitude that young men of a certain temperament build for themselves and then inhabit. But apart from the lack of companionship, he enjoyed his time as an acting-lieutenant more than anything else in his life up to that point. The constant challenges, physical and mental, stimulated him.
Zulu Company saw action twice that winter, but owing to his studies and lack of experience, Valentine remained back at the reserve camp with the sick and other dependents, commanding a squad of equally discouraged Wolves and being responsible for guarding the cumbersome wagons and baggage. Marksmanship contests for the noncombatants and rehearsing musical follies to welcome back the returning Wolves provided comic relief for the men's tensions, and every time one of his squad smuggled a woman into an isolated tepee, he pretended not to notice. By the first silent green explosion of spring, Zulu Company moved from Pine Bluff to the
Ouachita River, returning to active duty.
* * *
"Sorry, Valentine, you're staying behind again." Captain LeHavre put down his piece of chalk. The slanted rays of the falling sun gave his features a warm golden cast.
Behind him, the blackboard (which was actually green) had a rough map of southeastern Arkansas and the Louisiana borderlands. Dotted circles traced locations the other two platoons would explore on the long-range patrol consuming the rest of the month. Next to the young Wolf, Brostoff and Mallow exchanged comments in an undertone.
"Questions, gentlemen?" the captain asked.
"What are you leaving Val, sir?" Brostoff asked.
"His whole platoon. Just because he's staying doesn't mean he'll be unoccupied. In a sense, while we're out, he's the first line of defense of Southern Command. Once the rivers fall a little more, a hard-riding column could raid this place without us cutting their trail, let alone sighting them. The river needs watching, too. He needs men for patrols, running supplies down from Regiment and out to our caches, mapping and surveying these border farms."
"Bartering for rice, too, Valentine," Mallow said. "We'll all be sick of the stuff by fall."
"Beats going hungry. Time was there wasn't much more than trappers out here," LeHavre added. "Now there are some farms-plantations more like-and if we can get them organized, we might count the land out to the Mississippi ours. It would take a couple thousand men to garrison it properly, though, and unless they provide some irregular forces, that's not going to happen. You're a good talker, Valentine. Sound out a few of these locals and see if they'll accept arms and ammunition for a patrol service."
Valentine and his platoon saw the other two thirds of Zulu Company off the following dawn.
"Give my regards to the gators," one of Valentine's platoon japed.
"Leastways we'll be doin' more with our blades than whittlin'," countered one of the men from the southbound files, spitting sunflower seed shells.
Valentine's platoon worked the lines of the ferry the company constructed for the river crossing. Within weeks, the river would be wadable at a number of drifts, but LeHavre wanted to start exploring the southern borders with the Kurian Zone now.
